X-rated texts, a being pregnant, even an try at synthetic insemination. As one more feminine jail officer faces prices of sexual misconduct… Why accomplish that many ladies fall for violent criminals they’re paid to protect?

In times past, the guilty plea entered by a young woman called Alicia Novas, in a Northamptonshire courtroom on Monday last week would have been viewed as an extra­ordinary scandal.

Novas is a 19-year-old former prison officer who admitted having a sexual relationship with a prisoner at HMP Five Wells, near Wellingborough, last year.

Such a deplorable breach of professionalism would once have invited condemnation from across the nation. Today, however, it has become grimly ­routine, with Novas just one of a growing wave of prison officers – many, like her, very young – crossing the line with inmates.

Over the past year, at least nine other female prison employees have faced criminal charges for inappropriate or sexual relationships with prisoners, a series of offences involving explicit messages, a pregnancy and, in one extra­ordinary instance, an attempted artificial insemination using a medicine syringe.

In the last month alone, three other prison guards have appeared in court, along with Novas. It’s likely to be only the tip of the iceberg: according to a Freedom of Information response last month, 64 prison staff were recommended for dismissal between 2019 and 2024 over improper relationships with inmates.

The true scale is almost certainly higher, as the figure excludes those who resigned before disciplinary action could begin, as well as staff employed by external agencies, not to mention those whose conduct never came to light.

The result is a disturbing insight into the erosion of boundaries in which the prison guards themselves cross the line into criminality, as our rogues’ gallery shows.

Alicia Novas, 19

Novas was only months into her role at the category C Five Wells prison last year when she embarked on a four-month sexual relationship with Declan Winkless, a 30-year-old inmate, serving an 11-year ­sentence for his part in a series of vicious armed burglaries on ­properties in Leicestershire.

Northampton Crown Court was told Novas had smuggled ­cannabis and a mobile phone into the jail for Winkless and sent him her phone number, as well as engaging in a sexual relationship with him.

Novas, from Raunds, Northamptonshire, was remanded in ­custody after pleading guilty to two charges of ­misconduct in public office and four other offences relating to her time as a prison officer. She will be ­sentenced in January.

Rebecca Pinckard, 46

Prison officer Pinckard was in a relationship with an inmate at category C Highpoint Prison, in Stradishall, Suffolk, between April and July 2024.

The 46-year-old, from Six Mile ­Bottom, Cambridgeshire, was charged with ‘wilfully neglecting to perform duty/wilfully misconducting herself while being a holder of a public office’, after ­performing a sex act on a prisoner. She admitted the charge on November 19 and will be ­sentenced in January.

Sarah Barnett, 31

Now a beauty therapist, two years ago Barnett was working as an instructional officer at HMP ­Sudbury in Ashbourne, Derbyshire, a ­category D male ‘open prison’ when she ‘conducted a ­personal ­relationship with a ­serving prisoner’, Derby Crown Court was told.

Barnett, from Rugeley, Staffordshire, pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office on November 17 and will be sentenced in January.

Isabelle Dale, 23

Dale, from Portsmouth, embarked on two relationships with prisoners, during her time at HMP Coldingley in Surrey.

Within months of starting working there aged 19, she was in a ­sexual relationship with Shahid Sharif, 33, who was serving 12 years for an armed robbery during which he threatened to maim people with ammonia.

Such was her devotion, she had Sharif’s nickname ‘Sneaky’ tattooed on her neck.

Police subsequently ­discovered she had transferred money into his prison account, sent flirty messages and letters laced with the drug spice and had bought herself a £3,000 engagement ring.

CCTV footage also showed her entering Coldingley’s prayer room in July 2022 with Sharif while two inmates acted as lookouts, ­following which he messaged her that it was ‘good sharing dat love today’.

Phone records later revealed that from May 2022 she had also been involved in a relationship with 28-year-old Connor Money, who is serving nine years for killing his best friend in a car crash during a police chase.

On November 13 she was found guilty of misconduct in public office and will be sentenced in January. At Southwark Crown Court, Judge Chris Hehir warned the weeping Dale to ‘prepare emotionally and physically to go to prison’.

Heather Pinchbeck, 28

In her online CV, Pinchbeck cites her two-year tenure as a prison officer at HMP Dovegate, a category B male jail in Uttoxeter, Staffordshire, as having given her a ‘wealth of ­knowledge and expertise in administrative practices’.

What the business diploma management graduate doesn’t mention is that some of those ‘administrative practices’ extended to communicating with a violent inmate using an illegal mobile phone.

That violent inmate was Joseph Hardy, who is serving a 14-year ­sentence after slashing a man’s left leg with a machete in 2016.

Pinchbeck from Drakelow, near Burton-on-Trent, Staffordshire, who is understood to have a young daughter, pleaded guilty in October to one count of making illegal mobile communication with a prisoner and is due to be sentenced in January.

Aimee Duke, 26

Duke, from Stony Stratford, ­Buckinghamshire, was jailed for 12 months in August after admitting two counts of misconduct in public office, committed at Five Wells prison in Northamptonshire – the same prison where Alicia Novas worked.

Within months of joining as a 23-year-old prison officer in 2022, she swapped 248 messages with one of the inmates on her wing. ‘I want us to be together 100%’, was one text police found on her phone.

After a slip of paper was found in Duke’s handbag bearing a prison ID number, a review of CCTV revealed Duke interacting inappropriately with several prisoners, including entering cells when she had no ­professional reason to do so.

Cherrie-Ann Austin-Saddington, 29

A title-winning amateur boxer and mother of three, Austin-­Saddington became involved with sex offender Bradley Trengrove in 2019, two years after joining HMP The Verne on the Isle of Portland, in Dorset. Trengrove had been jailed for 13 years in 2015 for repeatedly raping a teenage girl and having ­sexual ­activity with a child.

The pair embarked on a sexual relationship during which ­Austin-Saddington got pregnant, although she ­miscarried. When Trengrove was moved to another prison following the discovery of their affair in March 2023, seven months into their relationship, Austin-Saddington resigned but continued to visit him at his new berth, HMP Channings Wood in Devon.

She was arrested in May 2023 after she was caught trying to smuggle a Calpol syringe to him – he’d wanted her to use it to inseminate herself with his sperm. She subsequently pleaded guilty to misconduct in a public office but was given a ­suspended sentence in May after she suffered a ­spinal stroke that left her paralysed from the chest down.

Katie Evans, 26

‘Young and immature’ was the description given by the judge who sentenced Evans when she appeared at Sheffield Crown Court court in March. She was barely 21 and only a few months into her role as a prison officer at HMP Doncaster when she became involved with robber Daniel Brownley in 2020.

The pair embarked on a relationship during which Evans, who has a young daughter, had more than 140 phone calls with Brownley, moved money around bank accounts for him and boasted of performing a sex act on him. Evans, from Doncaster, was ­sentenced to 21 months behind bars after pleading guilty to misconduct in public office.

Toni Cole, 29

Cole had been in a relationship with a 28-year-old inmate at HMP Five Wells – the same prison as Alicia Novas and Aimee Duke – for five months when suspicions were raised about her behaviour.

A police investigation found the pair had shared 4,431 texts and calls between September 1, 2022, and January 25, 2023, many of them ­sexual or flirtatious in nature.

Cole, from Wellingborough, Northamptonshire, was jailed for 12 months in February after pleading guilty to misconduct in public office.

Linda De Sousa Abreu, 30

An investigation into married officer De Sousa Abreu was launched at Wandsworth prison after managers learned of a video filmed inside a cell in June 2024 – just five months after she had started there – showing her having sex with an inmate.

De Sousa Abreu, from Fulham, South-West London was sentenced in January to 15 months behind bars after pleading guilty to misconduct in public office.

Additional reporting by Tracey Kandohla